» Student Questions: What Should I Study to Become a Web Developer?

Today I received an email from one of the readers asking what would be the correct path to pursue a job in web development (including back-end programming). I originally started out on this track taking a number of computer science course, however I ultimately decided that I enjoyed design more and switched fields of study. Since I never completed this program, and I am not officially a developer I am hoping that the community can help answer this question:

So I think I would like to go into web development as a career, what would you say are some valuable courses and degrees to get that would be most beneficial? How much will the degrees and courses vary upon what I want to focus on (front-end, php, asp, ruby, js, mysql, mssql, etc)?

My initial answer would be to study computer science, and pursue the front-end work in the spare time. As I have said in the past, I think that most schools do a relatively poor job of teaching proper front-end development and since the community does such a great job of sharing the proper techniques the time would be better spent studying the back-end work (which is arguably more marketable anyways).

Since I am not a developer, I am hoping that the community will help answer this question. If you are a working developer, programmer, or studying to become one please help out by sharing your experiences in the comments below!

09/18

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9 Responses to “Student Questions: What Should I Study to Become a Web Developer?”

Pete
September 19th, 2008 at 12:50 am

Take all the foundation class such as java, c program, java script… etc in community college. I wouid suggest to go ITT and Devry. They offer alot of computer program.
Richard, Peacock Carter
September 19th, 2008 at 5:24 am

What courses offer varies vastly in the UK for ‘computer science’ - sometimes, it’s not web-related at all (Java is quite popular), so CompSci may not be the best choice.

Software engineering degrees, though (as I may have said before), are useful, since they give you an insight in to how to build a website/web app etc.
Dan Donald
September 19th, 2008 at 9:43 am

I’d recommend Opera’s ‘Web Standards Curriculum’ (http://dev.opera.com/articles/wsc/) by Chris Mills and others. It gives a sound grounding in making a solid, well built front-end and the concepts to to be aware of around that.

My experience of university was that the web area scratched the surface of the basics (less so than Opera’s info) and didn’t demonstrate best practice or even how to actually make a decent site. The coding and database backend has other issues, some of which are hardware and language specific but regardless of which environment you work in, the public side is the audiences interaction with you.

Once you understand OO concepts, it’s worth experimenting and find out which lanuage(s) make sense to you. I know when i started, VBScript used in ASP Classic made no sense at all, whereas PHP just clicked. It may even be worth going the RoR route because you have a framework to enable to develop something practical very quick though I feel the theory from something like C# or PHP would do you good to understand the outcome and process of what you’re doing.

Hope that helps! Dan
brent
September 19th, 2008 at 1:11 pm

I’ve been a web developer since I was 17, so now over 8 years experience; College is a waste of MONEY. Sign up with Lynda.com, go read books. Learn what languages you want to on your own, and start building a portfolio.

With an impressive portfolio you can get a job without paying a college your first years salary to learn what you could have learned yourself.

Experience and Quality of work in this industry overwelms education. I never even got my GED, and no one cares I’ve been with 4 different companies making good money.
Jetrois
September 21st, 2008 at 1:58 pm

I’d say go to a community college. (Not ITT) and take the required courses and lots of self study.

Jetrois’s latest post: [Tadashi] Soul Eater 21
Stimul8d
September 23rd, 2008 at 6:10 am

Straight up simple answer is, unfortunately, go get a Computing Science degree or equivalent. Whether your primary language is Java,C#, Ruby or whatever, you will have (if you work hard) a fundamental understanding of computing, programming, accessibility and useability concepts which you can carry across any language/platform/framework.

I HATED uni but if i hadn’t done it, i wouldn’t be in the job i am now. I know the bain you have with little or no understanding of design in this field but that is something you CAN work on with advice from others and something which you can prove with a good portfolio. Few worthwhile employers would consider employing someone without a computing related degree,..i know i wouldn’t.
Anthony
September 24th, 2008 at 4:07 pm

This is a great article for beginners. thank you
Smith
September 26th, 2008 at 1:49 pm

Yes, i agree with the line the author specified about the poor job of teaching proper front-end development. This is really good for freshers.
tsquez
October 21st, 2008 at 7:52 am

Yes very good information for those interested in getting into the field of web design or web programming. But lets not forget the main ingredient: Passion! Remember if your not passionate about what your doing, then you shouldn’t be doing it.